Jim Caldwell, at the news conference introducing him as the Lions’ head coach, took it a step beyond Wednesday.

He made a great first impression.

It didn’t play out like a news conference as much as a sermon, complete with biblical references and a few Lions’ fans, oddly, sprinkled into the media seating ready with what bordered on hallelujahs.

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The media questions weren’t cushy, but there were no microphones provided for the questioning. Nobody could hear the tough questions on the radio and TV feeds, just Caldwell’s answers.

Caldwell said all the right things about how the Lions need to be more disciplined, that Matthew Stafford can be developed into an elite quarterback and how he has nothing to do with the past and is only looking to the future.

Yet, it wasn’t just what Caldwell said, but how he said it.

He presented himself as forceful.

The intellectual element was not unexpected, but there has been a notion Caldwell is a quiet leader. He looked like more than that Wednesday.

It was essentially a speech, something along the lines of a presidential nominee’s acceptance speech for a political party at the convention.

The words will ring hollow if the message doesn’t get through for a team that has labored to find its way through the muck of losing seasons.

It was surprising. The Lions’ front office had a similar reaction upon interviewing him.

The Jim Caldwell they interviewed was different than the one they perceived.

“He was real calm and measured, but has a real firebrand inside him,” owner William Clay Ford Jr. said.

The Lions’ adamantly contend they were not merely “settling” for Caldwell after coaching target No.1, Ken Whisenhunt, signed with the Tennessee Titans.

To his credit, Lewand didn’t act as if the Lions’ didn’t have interest in Whisenhunt.

“I’m even going to pretend about that, but here’s where I think people have gotten it wrong: It’s that we identified two candidates who fit what we were looking for in a head coach.

“Jim Caldwell wasn’t Plan B.”

There are several assistants, who could be available from the Seahawks, 49ers, Broncos and Ravens – the NFL’s version of the Final Four preparing for this weekend’s conference championship games. Why not wait to examine some of them more in depth?

“We did,” Lewand said. “There are a lot of tremendous coaches out there.

He has talked to, or exchanged texts, with several of his key players. He met with Stafford during the interview process.

“They believe, and I believe, the time is now, not two or three years down the road,” Caldwell said. “There is a great nucleus in all three phases of the game. We are on the brink of greatness.”

The initial news conference isn’t something that will make a coach, but there have been a couple instances in which Lions’ head coaches didn’t ever really recover from a dismal initial public offering.

It was at the Marriott on Opdyke Road in 2001 when Marty Mornhinweg, in that quirky speech pattern of his, said the following while holding his hand flat and out in front of his face: “The bar is high. The goal of this organization now is to win Super Bowls.”

And the response was laughter.

Caldwell sounded more convincing with his high expectations Wednesday.